Make a Rain Dance Colorado

Logo design and graphic layout for singer/songwriter Megan Burtt's charity project, "Make a Rain Dance Colorado: Colorado Musicians Supporting Wildfire Relief." The term "Rain Dance" is evocative of Native American religious ceremonies, so I chose to use Kokopelli (god of rain and fertility) and turquoise (an important and powerful mineral with protective amuletic powers, and an important trade export of the Ancestral Puebloans in the Four Corners region) in the logo design. Because this project has no direct affiliation with any American Indian group, I decided to limit connections with iconography/art/culture to these subtle logo elements. I chose to use the Western US map as an overlay for two reasons: (1) Colorado is basically a rectangle, and I wanted to show that the logo background was actually the shape of the state; and (2) to emphasize the regional impact of Colorado wildfires. Our neighboring states are affected by fires and smoke that extend beyond Colorado's borders, and they contribute resources and manpower to our firefighting efforts every year. The images were chosen to depict: (clockwise from left) Colorado's natural beauty; the destructive power of wildfires; the hard work and cooperation of firefighters; the rain we all hope and pray for; and the sacrifice of those who have lost their lives on the front lines (the monument pictured bottom center is outside Glenwood Springs, Colorado, honoring the 14 firefighters who died in the 1994 Storm King Mountain Wildfire). All images used are either: my own photographs, FEMA photographs (PD images published by a gov't agency), or royalty-free stock images. Logo font: Veneer by Yellow Design Studio, available for purchase from myfonts.com.